Whew.

It's been a long week. 

As I mentioned, Saturday evening Dafni started having contractions. My mom and I packed some things hurriedly, including our Subway, which we decided to eat in the car because we had over an hour to drive. It turned out (obviously) that we needn't have rushed. We spent Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday constantly reevaluating because she had contractions the entire time, and they kept gradually getting stronger, but still no baby. In the meantime we played with Goose, watched movies, and sat around talking (internet-lessly, as you may have noticed). 

Monday afternoon we came to the conclusion that having Jaylee around was keeping Dafni from really focusing on starting labor, so my dad and Daniel came to pick her up. It worked; Tuesday morning the contractions really started buckling down, and around 1:00 the midwife, Sarah, showed up, followed by Danielle and Gina, her assistants. They set up, we moved to the bedroom, and the real labor began. 

Guys... It was amazing. Okay, not at first, because mostly Talia and I were near tears every time Dafni had one of the really hard contractions. But it was amazing before that, because Dafni and Brandon kept talking about how much nicer it was to just be able to walk around their own house and watch movies, eat, and do whatever they wanted right up until the end (their first had been born in a hospital in Idaho, with a midwife). And it was amazing again when we got closer to the end, and Talia and I could see Brielle's head start to show.

And then she was out, in four pushes. Three days of slowly intensifying contractions, three hours of the really bad ones, and then in about twenty minutes Sarah was catching Brielle and handing her up to mommy. It was incredible.

I was supposed to have started work again on Tuesday, but Sunday night we could tell that that wouldn't be possible, and I arranged to come back on Wednesday instead. So Tuesday night I drove home, by myself in a torrential rainstorm, and it was not my favorite thing, but I listened to Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk and didn't get lost or die, so it turned out okay. I got to see Mike for about an hour, but pretty much went straight to bed. Wednesday morning I woke up at 5:30 and went to work, watching Lana and now also her new baby sister (two-month old Harper). Daniel was still watching Jaylee but needed help because he was packing to leave for China the next day, so he brought her over to me and I watched the three of them together for a couple hours (which was not at all as chaotic as it could have been). 

At 3:00 I got off work, went home and took over watching Jaylee for Mike (who had no idea what he was doing and was exhausted after 45 minutes with her), cleaned up, packed Goose into the car, picked up Alex from her granny's, and drove back out to Dafni's house for everyone - my dad, Daniel, Alex, and Jaylee - to meet Brielle for the first time. We left much earlier than we would have wished, but also much later since we all had to get up early the next day. We got home and I helped Daniel with his packing, then went straight to bed.

Thursday I worked, picked Mike up from work, and finally got to have an evening at home (though dinner was a bit of a scrounge since we had nothing in the house and were waiting on a paycheck).Today I worked half a day, walked home, and helped Benjamin with a project he was working on; I am now, finally, for the first time since last Saturday afternoon, feeling like things are back to normal. It's so nice, though I miss all the family I got to see so much over the long weekend.

And now I get to go shower, because I literally have not had a chance since Tuesday morning and my hair is feeling it. I spent naptime at work yesterday catching up on the blogs and Facebook, spent an hour this afternoon catching up on Google+, and have revived my blog. Welcome back, real life.